A Knife in the Heart Read online

  There was no time to stop. No time to try to talk a merchant into loaning him a pair of britches. He rounded the corner, apologized for almost pushing a young brunette into the streets, and stepped into a big man in a dark blue coat. Fallon hardly saw him, but his left hand pressed against a familiar piece of tin. A badge.

  He pushed back and saw the ruddy face and the coarse black walrus mustache and the green eyes underneath a police officer’s cap.

  Fallon sucked in a deep breath, exhaled. “Officer,” he said. “Am I glad to see you. I’m Fallon. Harry Fallon. And . . .”

  He thought one word, an expletive that would have had his mother washing out his mouth with lye soap, back in his childhood years in Gads Hill. He saw the nightstick swinging from the mustached policeman’s hand. No time to duck. No time to scream. Fallon tried to shout a warning and a plea.

  “There’s a plan to break the prisoners out of the federal courthouse!”

  But the world turned into an ugly, cold darkness. And Harry Fallon didn’t know if he had managed to say anything before he fell into the depths of midnight, something darker, colder, and more threatening than being thirty feet deep in the roaring undercurrent of the Missouri River.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Foul-smelling wet strings from the mop swept across Fallon’s face, causing him to roll over with a moan. The side of his head throbbed, but the blurriness slowly faded ,and he saw the ceiling. He had been lying on the cold, hard floor, his face pressed against the iron bars to the city jail. Some trusty was mopping the hallway floor, which explained why the beard stubble on Fallon’s face now stunk like urine.

  Rolling back toward the bars, he reached up and grabbed hold of the bar running horizontal and pulled himself up.

  He remembered the policeman with the billy club. Fallon swore and yelled at the trusty with the mop.

  One of the men in his cell swore at Fallon that it was too early in the morning to be yelling. Fallon turned back and stared at the window high up on the wall. Light shone in. Morning light. He had arrived in Leavenworth in the afternoon. That meant today was the day. He had been out all night. Now Fallon swore and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Hey!” His voice thundered down the corridor. The trusty, a thin old man with a ragged white beard, turned and frowned.

  The man in the cell rolled over in his bunk and said, “Mistuh, you don’t shuts your trap—”

  Fallon turned back to him and said, “Open your mouth again and I’ll close it.”

  He knew he didn’t look tough at all, not with the lump on his head, his filthy shirt and underpants, no socks on his battered feet, and no pants. But his face, and that voice, gave the tough nut in the bunk a moment’s pause. The six other men in the cell simply found some other place to stare or just closed their eyes and tried to sleep off their hangovers.

  Fallon twisted again. The old man in the corridor scratched his beard.

  “My name’s Fallon. I’m warden at the federal pen here in town. Get Andrew Cameron down here immediately.”

  That ended the silence. The men in the cell, and even those across the corridor, began sniggering.

  “Ya hear that, mate? He’s the warden.”

  “Telly, it must be hard times over at the pen. When the warden can’t afford pants, socks, or even boots.”

  Ignoring them and the laughter, Fallon kept his eyes trained on the old mopper. “You heard me. Get Andy down here. He’s the chief of police.”

  When the man didn’t move, Fallon pushed his head against the bars. “There’s going to be an attempted breakout today at the federal courthouse, from the holding cells. And if you don’t get the chief of police down here immediately, every one of you will be indicted as accessories.” Still, no one moved, except the mopper’s picking at his filthy beard. So Fallon exploded with a stream of profanity that felt as if the entire cells quaked. That at least got the old man with the mop to step back and caused a policeman beyond the locked door that led to the cells to open it and bellow. “What is all this racket? Keep it quiet—”

  Fallon roared. “Get Andy Cameron down here right now. I’m Harry Fallon, warden at the federal pen, and blood will be rolling through the streets of this town if we don’t get some armed officers to the federal courthouse.”

  The cop stepped inside. “What?”

  “You heard me. Get Andy down here, or let me out now.”

  The cop and the mopper stared at each other. Fallon screamed, “Do you want Bowen Hardin roaming free in Kansas? With Indianola Anderson with him?”

  The police officer shut the door. Fallon turned around, kicked at a roach crawling across the floor.

  “I think he must be the warden,” said the red-mustached man in the corner of the cell.

  “I think he’s drunk,” said another.

  Five minutes later, the door opened, and Fallon turned back, grabbing the bars, leaning to see. He swore. It wasn’t the police chief, only the sergeant. The sergeant stepped lively, turned to face Fallon through the iron barns, and assumed the Army stance of at ease.

  “You say you are Warden Fallon?” the cop said in thick Irish brogue.

  “I am.”

  “No identification was on him, Paddy,” the first cop said. “Kellogg brought him in late yesterday afternoon. Indecent exposure, disturbing the peace.”

  “Kellogg might find himself under federal indictment, too,” Fallon said. “You don’t rap a man over the head with a nightstick when he isn’t resisting arrest.”

  “He didn’t have any identification on him,” the first cop said.

  “You can find it in my pants and coat at the bottom of the Missouri River a few miles downstream. Get Andy here.”

  “He’s . . .” one of the cellmates decided to say, but the sergeant cut him off.

  “Fallon’s wife was here,” the sergeant said. “She said he didn’t come home last night. Thought he might be at the federal courthouse. Or working late at the pen. But he wasn’t.”

  “Her name’s Christina,” Fallon said. He described her. “There’s a five-year-old daughter. Her name is Rachel Renee.”

  The sergeant looked at the cop beside him, and Fallon described his daughter, then cited the address where the lived. “You won’t find it in the city directory,” he added. “We haven’t been here long enough.”

  Turning to the cop, the Irish sergeant said. “Go upstairs. Fetch Chief Cameron.” He stepped back and yelled to the open door. “Benji. Get the keys. Now.” His head turned and he studied Fallon. “If this is your idea of a joke, you’ll find it really hard to laugh with your bloody jaw busted in ten places.”

  * * *

  Before the cell door was unlocked, one of the prisoners pulled off his brogans and gave them to Fallon. Not be outdone, a man across the corridor removed his Levi’s, bragged that they had hardly been worn, that he had just stolen them a few days ago from a store in Missouri and that he didn’t think he’d get extradited from Kansas for a pair of blue denim britches. Fallon stepped into the jeans as soon as he was out of the cell, while the sergeant carried the shoes. By the time Fallon sat in the chief’s office, he had also been gifted a pair of thick socks. He was pulling those on when Chief of Police Andrew Cameron stepped into the office.

  “Harry—you look like hell—what the hell is going on?”

  Fallon laced up the first shoe. “Andy, there’s hardly any time to explain. But you need to get every officer you have to the federal courthouse.” He found the other shoe. “Telephone the federal pen. Tell Preston, the clerk, to have as many guards as can be spared sent to the federal courthouse. Give them shotguns and as many boxes of shells as they can carry. Tell Preston the order is coming from me, and I’m taking full responsibility. And if Monty Berrien is still in his office, tell Preston to keep him there. And if he moves, blow his head off.”

  He tied the laces of the other brogan and stood. “We’ll need to arrest Judge Mitchum. Don’t look at me that way, Andy, there’s no time to explain.” />
  He stood. The pants fit fine. The shoes were too big, but with the thick socks, they’d do. And those socks were just what he needed as badly as the bottoms of his feet had been scraped, poked, jabbed, and ripped walking through the hellishly thick forest along the river.

  “I don’t know how this is going down, Andy.” Fallon tried to comb the mess of hair with his fingers. “But there’s a plot to get Hardin and Anderson out of the holding cells in the courthouse’s basement. Three other prisoners are likely breaking out with them.”

  The sergeant brought over a gray bowler. “Here,” he said. “This was found in the street a while back.”

  Fallon almost laughed. It was his old hat. He couldn’t even lose the damned thing.

  The other policeman was on the telephone. Andrew Cameron yelled across the office to break out the Winchesters and to send a runner to the courthouse to clear the streets immediately.

  “Let’s go,” Fallon said, jamming the bowler over his head.

  “Wait.” Andrew Cameron moved to the desk, opened a bottom drawer, and pulled out a .41-caliber double-action Colt Thunderer. He checked the cylinder before handing the revolver butt forward to Fallon.

  “You might need this,” the police chief said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Knowing how important time was, they did not bother trying to find a hack or get into one of the police wagons. They ran, ten city policemen—including the chief and desk sergeant—and Fallon, guns in their hands. Men, women, and children on the sidewalks gave them a wide berth. Drivers of wagons stopped in the middle of streets. Horsemen reined up and sat deep in their saddles, keeping a tight grip on the reins, and watched with faces drawn and pale.

  When the federal courthouse came into view, so did a stream of men Fallon recognized instantly. Guards from the federal pen, brandishing pump-action Winchester shotguns, stopped at the courthouse steps. Raymond pushed back his hat. He was sweating and out of breath. “Good to see you, sir,” he said.

  “Good to see you,” Fallon said. O’Connor, Fallon figured, would have been minding the prisoners on the work detail at the new facility. But Raymond had proved himself time and time again.

  A church bell chimed. Nine o’clock. The judge would be talking to the attorneys. The witnesses and defendants would be getting ready to be led to the courthouse. Fallon had fifteen men at his disposal.

  He turned to the city police chief. “Andy, take six men to the courtroom. Arrest the judge, and don’t let anyone leave until you’ve checked them out.” He looked at the other city officers. “The rest of you, find a position at every corner of this building. Make your presence known, but don’t be flashy about it. And keep your heads down if this place turns into a turkey shoot.”

  He nodded at the guard named Wilson, who like most of those who rotated between duty at the old prison and the one under construction, had likely figured he’d have an easy job this day. “Wilson, take half the men around back. Get some cover and wait. If they come out running, I have to think they’ll come out that way. If people are already there, slap the manacles on their wrists and gag them. We’ll worry about their protests and threatening to sue us later. If someone flashes a gun, kill him.”

  He thumbed back the hammer of the Colt that Cameron had given him, but he kept his finger out of the trigger guard. He smiled without humor at Raymond. “You men, come with me.”

  They followed him up the steps and through the door.

  * * *

  A federal deputy marshal put his hand on the holstered Remington and walked stern-faced to Fallon. “Warden . . . ?” he managed to say, but could not keep the tremor out of his voice.

  “Fred,” Fallon told him. “We’ve got a potential problem. Have Bowen Hardin or Indianola Anderson been moved out of the holding cells to the courtroom yet?”

  “No.” He looked up the stairs that led to the courtrooms. “Waiting on orders. What’s going on?”

  “There’s a breakout planned.”

  “God.” The man’s face turned ghostly pale. He thought of something else. “Your wife was just here, looking for you.”

  Fallon felt the cold fear strike him. This was not something he had thought about, though it certainly made sense, knowing Christina as well as he did. “She wondered . . . well . . . you hadn’t come . . .”

  “I know.” He nodded toward the door that led to the stairs. “Let’s go.”

  “Was Christina alone?”

  “Yeah. She said she left your girl with . . . oh . . . the widow of the guard who got killed during that bloody mess . . .”

  Fallon breathed easier. Christina would be out of harm’s way if this morning turned ugly. She’d be with Janice Jefferson and Rachel Renee.

  The door opened, and Raymond stepped inside first, swinging the twin barrels of the shotgun in all directions. “Nobody around, sir,” he announced, and moved down the steps. Fallon was next, followed by the deputy marshal and the rest of the assembled men, packing enough iron to start a war.

  Raymond led the way down to the first landing, swung around, nodded, and continued to the basement. Fallon followed, with the rest of the guards behind him. Boots hammered against the stairs, echoing up and down the cavernous chamber, but Fallon hoped the noise could not be heard beyond the heavy doors.

  They stopped on the bottom, sweating. Fallon shifted the .41, still cocked, to his left hand, wiped his palms against the stolen jeans, and took the revolver again in his right. He pushed himself against the wall near the door, nodded. Slowly, Raymond took the handle in his left hand, clutching the twelve-gauge in his right, and cracked the door open.

  Fallon could see the gas lamp flickering in the drafty hallway. No one in view. He ordered the door opened with a nod, and Fallon stepped into the damp hallway, looking up and down the hall. Nobody in view. The chair by the door was empty, and that could be a problem. With prisoners about to be escorted to the courtroom, a deputy marshal should have been here. But he could also be checking the cells past the door, maybe even relieving his bladder.

  “Let’s go,” Fallon whispered, and the men followed him to the door that led to the holding cells.

  He looked through the circular hole in the center of the door, through the bars, and breathed a sigh of relief. The guard was there, talking to the prisoners. Fallon stepped back and told Raymond to open this door. When he did, Fallon called out to the guard, “Deputy. This is Warden Harry Fallon. Is everything all right in there?”

  He could see the deputy, stepping back, startled. “Ummm . . . yes, sir, Warden. Just a routine check.”

  Fallon moved into the doorway, keeping the revolver pressed against his leg, and walked down the corridor. Raymond and two of the others entered the holding area with him. The rest remained outside.

  “What’s going on?” the deputy said. With his job of guarding prisoners, he had no weapon. Men with close contact with men in holding cells were not allowed to carry firearms or any type of weapon. It was a sound policy. You didn’t want a convict to be able to get a lawman’s weapon.

  “Are you armed, Deputy?” Fallon asked as he covered the twenty yards.

  The man looked as if he had taken an ax handle across his stomach. “No . . . no . . . sir.”

  Good, Fallon thought. For if the man presented a gun, Fallon would have drilled him with a slug from the Thunderer.

  “Are you men here to escort some witnesses and defendants to the courtroom?” the guard asked. “I mean . . . you’re not here for Bowen Hardin, are you?”

  Even better, Fallon thought. Bowen Hardin was still in his cell, too. Waiting for his date with the executioner. Maybe this had all been some sort of wild rumor, that there never was going to be a breakout. It would have taken some doing . . .

  No, no. Fallon knew that was wishful thinking. This had been planned. This was proceeding, most likely. Men did not kidnap wardens and take them downstream in a rowboat planning to murder them and dispose of their bodies. No. You didn’t do anything like that
if you were bluffing or would even consider backing out of the murderous scheme.

  “All right.” Fallon exhaled. He turned to the guards and saw doubt creeping into their faces, and he even briefly considered the chance that perhaps that knot on his head, the one either given him by the Leavenworth policeman or the men who had kidnapped him, had rattled his mind and compromised his faculties.

  He looked into the cell at one of the prisoners, turned back to say something to Raymond, and then spun, and rushed to the door, gripping the bars and looking at the little man sitting on a cot.

  “Who the hell is this?” Fallon thundered.

  The deputy stepped closer and said, “It’s the notorious murderer Bowen Hardin.”

  Turning viciously, Fallon thundered, “That is not Bowen Hardin.” He rushed to the cell across the narrow hall and looked inside. “And these men are not Aaron Holderman, Sean MacGregor, Jimmy Calloway, or Indianola Anderson.” Raymond rushed to the cell that allegedly housed Bowen Hardin. Raymond’s savage curse confirmed to Fallon that he had not lost his mind. None of the cells housed any of the men they were supposed to be holding.

  Fallon spun to the deputy. “When were these men delivered to you?”

  “Early this morning,” the deputy said. “I swear on a stack of Bibles, Warden, that these were the men the marshals brought here.”

  Fallon stepped toward Raymond.

  “Six federal marshals arrived before dawn,” Fallon said, “with the proper paperwork. They took the five prisoners, shackled them, loaded them into a wagon, and headed away from the prison, sir.”

  The man in Bowen Hardin’s cell laughed. “Well, if we’re not supposed to be here, y’all better let us go.” Across the hall, the other four men laughed like howling coyotes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Fallon let out a breath, calmed himself, and stepped closer to the cell housing the impostor. The man who looked nothing like Bowen Hardin leaned back on his cot, putting his hands behind his head and resting against the stone wall.